Much Ado About Upholstery, Cats, and Kryptonite in Well now

I type this with a semi-mangled hand, courtesy of the righteous fangs of my sweet little Lucyfer. One day I'll forget I love her, react to the sight and sensation of her fangs in my flesh, and fling her fluffy butt against the wall, purely out of reflex, and we'll be done with the every other week-end mani-pedi wars.

Honestly, I'm gentle and patient. I've never hit the quick, but Lucy turns from bouncy-cute LuLu into the hydra-headed fang monster that her vet's assistants all know and fear every time the nail-clippers appear. (Yes, a vet assistant from long ago gave renamed her Lucyfer, an incredibly apt labeling of one of her quicksilver-turning multiple personalities.)

I'll live. A little hydrogen peroxide, a couple of boo-boo covers and life goes on with yet another scar or two. (I scar terribly easily. My hands are a map of Lucy's tantrums.)

Tessa was quiet and long-suffering as always during her nail session. She doesn't like it but her worst protest is a guilt-inducing whimper-plea for release.

It was important to clip both of the girls today. After several days under quilts, I really want my new recliner to see the light of day soon.

New recliner - mixed feelings...

Good - It's just perfect. Petite-framed, just my size so that my legs don't stick out comically if I don't have a pillow crammed behind me. It's also, and this can't be stressed gigglingly enough, navy blue paisley! (I have this ridiculous affection for both blue and paisley. Give me something blue paisley ! and I'm reduced to babbling.)

Bad - I should not have bought it. Much as I adore anything I buy, I always suffer the constant refrain of the indebted. I know that I have major debts and I should pay them off before I start buying new things, so every purchase requires massive rationalizations and extended internal recriminations.
Well, I paid cash. I know, I could have put the cash towards debt. Also, if I wait until I'm out of debt to buy necessaries, it's a fair bet I'll always have to go without.
(And it's blue paisley! I HAD to buy it. I mean, blue paisley. Duh.)

Practical - I needed a recliner, seriously, needed it. Ever since I fractured my back last summer, I've had nowhere comfortable to sit in my entire house. My living room sofa and chair-and-a-half are both oversized, great for lounging, tucking your feet up beside you or curling up against the high arm. If you wear a torture corset, however, you no longer do a lot of tucking your feet up beside you or twisting of any kind. You sit in one mode, straight up. If the comfy chair or sofa you're in is too big, you cram pillows behind you and basically never find a position you can abide for long. So I've spent most of my sitting time for the last eight months in my study, sitting straight up in a straight backed chair at my work-table.
This recliner fits me. I can sit up straight in it comfortably without constantly readjusting pillows or sliding forward. I can even, get this, recline if I so desire. A comfortable place to sit for a while in a pretty much constantly uncomfortable life, no adequate description for it.

Impractical - It's a good piece of furniture. I bought and paid for quality. Furniture is a long term purchase. If you buy quality and take care of it, you usually don't have to buy it again unless...
1 - Your physical needs change drastically, like if you break your back or
2 - You survive a disaster but your house doesn't, say something like a city-destroying hurricane, like Katrina, or
3 - You own a furniture-destroying feline Katrina of your own, like Lucyfer.
Bringing a good piece of furniture into her domain is just giving her another expensive unofficial but irresistible scratching-post.
So, because I have a cat, I shouldn't have nice things that they'll just destroy.
Sigh.

Hence the chair has sat in the corner for days under heavy quilts when it isn't directly under me and my sharp-tongued protection. ("Lucy! Don't think I can't feel you back there! Get your nasty little claws out of this poor defenseless chair.")

Hence also today's mani-pedi session to dull Lucy's weapons of massive destructiveness. My hand will heal with minor scarrage. Absolutely perfect blue paisley upholstery will not heal at all and the scarrage, if things go with the recliner as they have with the rest of the upholstery, the scarrage will be massive.

In addition to claw clipping, I also tested out a new product I recently picked up. It's a bottle of liquid kitty kryptonite. The label says you just spray it on anything you want your cat to avoid and !poof! that object becomes aggressively evil in the eyes and noses of your cats, things to be avoided like the plague or dogs of the non-purse variety. (I've heard a fairly believable rumour that cats enjoy the taste of dogs too small to defend themselves.)

Now I've been lied to by labels, advertising, and men I've dated or married before, so I bought the bottle of supposed magic with a grain of salt. (Well, I actually used a debit card, but you know what I mean.) First I tested the claim that the spray wouldn't stain on a small spot on the chair's underside and found that claim wasn't bogus. All right! Score one in favour of the label's veracity.

On to the big test. The method?
Take one paper towel.
Spray it lightly with the kitty kryptonite.
Find the clawed semi-domesticated demon in question.
Slowly advance towards said demon with the paper towel held out towards her. Observe her reactions.

In Lucy's case the result was absolutely wonderful (from my point of view, hers may differ). First whiff, she crinkled her nose in disgust at the scent I couldn't even detect. As the offending object got closer, she stood up from her former lounging position, arched her back in perfect Halloween cat posture, tail straight to the ceiling, and hissed. When I continued pressing closer, almost touching her with the miraculous mixture, she actually turned tail and ran away.

Yes! Yes! Oh Yes!
My arms in the air like an Olympian breaking a world's record by two seconds, three inches, or four points, I did the happy dance with wild abandon. (Sometimes living alone is a good thing. No witnesses to have to explain things to constantly.)

I've tossed the quilts back on the chair temporarily and thrown several towels practically soaked in kitty kryptonite over the arms and back of the chair. I'll leave it that way for a day or two and, just to make certain Lucy carves the unpleasant association into her walnut sized brain, I'm going to pick her up and deposit her onto the feline odious chair a few times. I won't hold her there, just plop her down and let her hop off so that she know how much just hates it. It's a minor torture when compared to having to kill her for destroying my new favourite object.

Two days like that should be enough. On Monday I'll pull off the towels and quilts, give the chair itself a light spray of kryptonite and attempt to live like a normal person with a really pretty little recliner.

(In case you're wondering why I don't just declaw Lucy, it's because that's not an option I'd ever consider. I am absolutely opposed to declawing. It's the equivalent of over-reacting to your child drawing on the walls with crayon by cutting off all his fingers up to the first knuckle. If you're so unable to understand and adapt to cat behaviour that you feel compelled to mutilate them for your convenience, you really don't need a cat.)

Poor Lucy. Sometimes I wonder whether she doesn't wish someone else had adopted her all those years ago. Of course, given how exasperating she can be, I'm fairly certain her life span would have been considerably shorter than her current almost thirteen years if anyone with less patience had chosen her.
Damn, it's a good thing she's so cute and I'm so stupid.